Teachers say they need more help with problem pupils

Schools are being forced to take too much responsibility for children with deep-seated problems because of the failings of social workers, teachers have warned.

Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, which has just held its annual conference in Torquay, said schools were expected to do too much without proper support from other services.

England's regime of intensive testing had led to a rise in children with mental health problems, she said.

"Because schools and teachers are there, in the community, open and accessible, they are too often expected to do too much without proper and timely professional support from other services," she said.

"Yes, we know our young people well, and we can spot trouble, but we cannot be expected to be responsible for the entire range of services they need. Other services must take their fair share."

Bousted insisted that the narrow curriculum and "teaching to the test" had led to children suffering more stress and anxiety. "The rise in children's mental health problems cannot be divorced from their status as the most tested in the world. The tests label young people as failures, and this leads to one of the lowest rates for staying on post-16 of any industrialised country," she said.

The government is piloting a system of "testing when ready" which could replace national curriculum tests, or Sats, at the end of the key stage. The schools secretary, Ed Balls, said in December that the government would consider replacing Sats in 2009, if the current "making good progress" pilot was successful.

But Bousted was "less optimistic" about the plans than the schools minister, Jim Knight, and feared the alternative held as many problems as the existing tests. Students who achieved less than others would make less progress and schools with disadvantaged intakes would continue to be penalised, she warned.

"There is every danger that Assessment for Learning would be degraded into assessment for covering the teacher's back - reams and reams of recording of levels with very little focus on the individual student's understanding of key concepts in the subject." She added that she was "implacably opposed" to schools being paid bonuses for getting a child to progress two levels.